IMPLEMENTATION OF VENDOR-MANAGED INVENTORY AND POTENTIAL PROBLEMS

According to IGD (2006) the UK-retail grocery industry will continue to grow during the next years. Supply chain management including efficient consumer response and efficient replenishment are essential factors to keep on competitive. In this fast moving market one of the highest goals is to satisfy the end-customer. Especially grocery retailers become stronger due to higher market share. Therefore they are in the position to implement programmes such as vendormanaged inventory (VMI) together with their suppliers and with support of software providers and/ or consultancies. This research project focuses on the implementation of VMI within the UK-retail grocery industry and potential problems. The questionnaire contains mainly attitude questions and a few open questions and has been sent to retailers, suppliers and to software companies. The attitude questions cover topics such as partnership, trust and information sharing, more detailed implementation aspects especially by choosing and deciding which software provider or consultancy should support the implementation process. Finally, several statements concerning VMI have been given for the purpose of evaluation. The main research task was to find out if there is a difference within the answers of the three different participating groups. Moreover to check if there is a major difference between the findings of the survey and the literature which is analysed first. The analyses show that there are simply little differences within the answers of the different groups due to dissimilar point of views. Very often retailers have the power and are much stronger ttian suppliers. It is often the case that suppliers have no other chance than to implement a new technology such as the VMI-technique. Otherwise they will lose their business partner and customer. On the other hand the software provider or consultancy has the tasks to provide the software solution, training, additional services such as maintenance and to support the whole implementation process with both retailer and supplier. The conclusion gives a thought that VMI plays an important role within the UKretail grocery industry and will continue to grow in the future. The implementation of VMI is based on trust and partnership between retailer and supplier. Moreover a software company plays an important role besides offering the software solution. It copes with tasks such as general support, training, future maintenance. Nevertheless, retailers and suppliers should make a contract about the coverage of implementation. Especially large retailers should make the implementation of VMI, related investments and changes more attractive to suppliers rather than just forcing them